Defending the Doctrines of Grace and God's Sovereignty Part 6: Perseverance of the Saints

Defending the Doctrines of Grace and God's Sovereignty Part 6

Perseverance of the Saints

     One of the most misidentified of the doctrines, its often confused with Once Saved Always Saved. There is a major distinction however. Perseverance of the Saints is the doctrine that teaches that those whom God regenerates, will persevere to the end and go to heaven. This is a process that involves a continual increase in sanctification in the person's life as God changes them to conform to the image of Jesus. Once Saved Always Saved however, is the idea that once you give the proverbial hat tip to God, you're in the kingdom of heaven no matter how ungodly you live your life. This is an over simplification, but not by much. While there is very little biblical evidence against the Perseverance of the Saints, why don't we first look at the verses that teach this doctrine.

     Ephesians 1:13-14: "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.". Honestly there isn't much here that needs to be expounded upon. It's rather straight forward. The basic gist is that after first hearing the gospel, and believing, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit for the glory of God. If you're sealed by God, who can unseal you?

     Philippians 1:6: "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." Again, fairly straightforward. Paul is stating that the good work, our salvation, was begun by God and will be perfected, or fulfilled, in heaven.

     John 6:35-40: "Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” I know, I know, I've used this passage a number of times now, but it's because the Doctrines of Grace are so consistent that I can turn back to these passages again and again, and they always give evidence to them. Here we see in verse 35, those who come to Jesus will never hunger or thirst. If one will never hunger spiritually, then they cannot fall away from the source of that spiritual nourishment! In verse 37 Jesus plainly tells us that those who come to Him, He will not cast out. Now I know what you're thinking, "Just because He won't cast us out doesn't mean we can't walk away!" This bit of eisegesis might be true, save for one thing. Jesus said "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us." (1 John 2:19) It doesn't get any more clear cut than that. Only those who remain in Jesus are truly saved.

     Now, back to the earlier verses, 39 and 40 are reiterations of the same point. All that the Father gives to the Son, are saved, Jesus loses none of those given to Him, and He raises them up on the last day, in other words, brings them to glory in heaven. If Jesus loses none, does that denote that He might lose some? That some could "walk away" from those that the Father gave Him? Obviously not. He specifically says "I will lose NONE of them".

     One major misunderstanding of PotS, is that those who believe it will somehow "slack off" or just continue to follow a sinful lifestyle. However, just as I pointed out above in Philippians 1:6, God began a good work in those whom are saved, and He will continue that good work until the saved are called home to heaven. Also, as it states in 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." This is stating that the bondage to sin has been broken, and that the new nature in Christ wants only to grow, please and glorify God. This isn't possible in one who remains in their original human nature.


     Now, for the final time in this series, I will address some serious errors by our friends at CAHCT. Here is the first:

     Did I not just address this earlier? As I said, there's little to no Biblical rebuttal to PotS, so people go to Google, type in Perseverance of the Saints, scroll around until they find the wording they like, and then pounce on it. In this instance, as far as they know, the discussion might've been a refutation of that very idea, but they saw the thumbnail offered by a Google search and ran with it. This is the definition of shallow.

     After seeing this very first line, I knew nothing that followed after it could be good. This is typical of our friends at CAHCT. They tend to invent strawman definitions and positions so they can beat the stuffing out of them, whilst telling reformed or Calvinist folks they aren't allowed to post there to help correct their errors. This is typical cult-think. Now, we do not believe that one must persevere to be saved. That is works salvation and a heresy. We do however believe that those whom God elected will persevere to the end. It's funny that this person quotes Arthur Pink, but still misses exactly what he said in the quote. That we are granted our perseverance from God, and that we cannot persevere without it. This refutes his earlier claim that we believe we must persevere to be saved. I'm wondering at the reading comprehension level of our friend here. Also, we know exactly what we've embraced. God's sovereignty over all things, the idea that you've  abandoned in favor of a man centered theology based on your idol, your "autonomous free will".

Finally we have someone at least attempting to go to the Scriptures to defend their position. It's not a good attempt, but I give them props for at least going to God's word. However, what we have here is not a discussion of people who walk away from the faith, which Jesus addresses in 1 John 2:19, but rather false teachers, whom Peter is telling us will receive a far worse punishment for deceiving and attempting to turn people away from God. By pulling this passage out of context, we can clearly see the shallow nature of the "refutation". The final paragraph makes no sense. How is the gift of perseverance from God as we saw earlier from Arthur Pink, holding Him over a barrel? We see this is just another attempt at the "carnal Christian" line, but it falls well short. If God grants us what we need to persevere to the end, how is it that we hold anything over God when His will has come to pass? It's this level of shallow, hateful thinking that makes me believe our friends at CAHCT here may be the very ones Peter was describing in the passage given in this screenshot.

     I've closed all of these with a call to repentance and an urging of the reader to know Jesus as their saviour. This is no different. It is a wonderful, freeing and humbling feeling to know that when God chose His elect, He gave them that which they needed to persevere to the end and remain faithful to Him. If you'd like to know that feeling, don't wait! Fall on your knees, acknowledge your sin, repent of it and pray for salvation in the name of Christ Jesus. God bless!